The impact of direct instruction on students’ vocabulary learning an action research project on 11th form students at gia vien b high school

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOIUNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** VŨ NGỌC HẢI THE IMPACT OF DIRECT INSTRUCTION ON S

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

*****************

VŨ NGỌC HẢI

THE IMPACT OF DIRECT INSTRUCTION ON STUDENTS‟ VOCABULARY LEARNING: AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT ON 11 TH

FORM STUDENTS AT GIA VIEN B HIGH SCHOOL

Tác động của hướng dẫn trực tiếp đến việc học từ vựng của học sinh lớp 11 trường trung học phổ thông Gia Viễn B: Một nghiên cứu hành động

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

HANOI, 2016

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST –

GRADUATE STUDIES

*****************

VŨ NGỌC HẢI

THE IMPACT OF DIRECT INSTRUCTION ON STUDENTS‟

VOCABULARY LEARNING: AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT ON 11 TH

FORM STUDENTS AT GIA VIEN B HIGH SCHOOL

Tác động của hướng dẫn trực tiếp đến việc học từ vựng của học sinh lớp

11 trường trung học phổ thông Gia Viễn B: Một nghiên cứu hành động

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Dr Nguyêñ Thi Ngọc ̣ Quỳnh

HANOI, 2016

I, Vu Ngoc Hai, hereby certify that the thesis entitled “The impact of direct

instruction on students‟ vocabulary learning: An action research project on

11 th form students at Gia Vien B High School.” is submitted for the partial

fulfillment of the Degree of Master of Arts at the Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies,University of Languages and International Studies- Vietnam National University,Hanoi I also declare that this thesis is the result of my own research and efforts and

it has not been submitted for any other purposes

Hanoi, 2016

Vũ Ngọc Hải

First of all, I would like to express my sincere and deepest gratitude to mysupervisor Dr Nguyen Thi Ngoc Quynh for her unfailing support, patience andcontinuous help in the process of writing up this dissertation Her insightful ideasand constructive suggestions have enriched my knowledge about the research in thefield of direct vocabulary instruction and it thus broadened the scope of my project

Besides, my deep thanks and appreciation also go to all the lecturers and thestaff of the Faculty of Post Graduate Studies at University of Languages andInternational Studies for their valuable lectures and knowledge on which my minorthesis was laid the foundation In addition, I am also grateful to my lovely 11th formEnglish major students at Gia Vien B High School who were highly cooperative in

my study

Last but not least, I deeply indebted to my family whose love and greatsupport help me complete this thesis

This study, which is an action research project, sets out to examine theimpact of direct instruction on the vocabulary retention of 11th form student at GiaVien B High School in Ninh Binh and to gain their self-evaluation of the impact ofteachers‟ direct instruction on their vocabulary retention at the same time Theresearch started with a semi-structure interview to explore students‟ attitudestoward and their problems in learning vocabulary Based on results of this analysis,the researcher decided to design activities to present vocabulary through directinstruction during a six-week intervention During this period, the students had totake a post-treatment test and a delayed post-treatment test which were designed tomeasure their retention of taught words By the end of the intervention, the surveyquestionnaire was administered to all students and semi-structured interviews werecarried out with four selected students to find out the students‟ opinions and attitudetoward the impact of teachers‟ direct instruction on their vocabulary retention.Findings of the study revealed that direct instruction did not make greatimprovement in the students‟ vocabulary retention This might be because the time

of the intervention was not long enough (6 weeks) for the intervention to bringabout significant difference However, the students‟ attitudes toward vocabularylearning were positive despite their insignificant change in the test scores

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi

LIST OF FIGURES, TABLES AND CHARTS vii

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims and Objectives of the Study 3

3 Research questions 3

4 Method of the Study 3

5 Scope of the Study 4

6 Significance of the Study 4

7 Organization of the thesis 4

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 6

CHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEW 6

1.1 An overview of vocabulary 6

1.1.1 Definition of vocabulary 6

1.1.2 Types of vocabulary 7

1.1.3 Aspects of Vocabulary Knowledge 8

1.2 Approaches to vocabulary instruction 9

1.3 Direct Instruction 10

1.3.1 Definition of Direct Instruction 10

1.3.2 The Characteristics of Direct Instruction 11

1.3.3 Process of Direct Instruction 12

1.4 Vocabulary retention 14

1.5 Related previous studies on the impact of direct instruction on the students‟ vocabulary learning 15

CHAPTER 2 METHODOLOGY 18

2.1 Setting of the study 18

2.2 Participants 19

2.3 Research design 19

2.3.1 Rationale for using action research method 19

2.3.2 Research procedure 22

2.4 Techniques of collecting data 25

2.5 Techniques of analyzing data 26

CHAPTER 3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 28

3.1 Analysis of the preliminary study 28

3.2 Data analysis 29

3.2.1 The findings from the post-treatment tests 29

3.2.2 The findings from questionnaires 30

3.2.3 The findings from observation 34

3.2.4 The findings from the interviews with the students 35

3.3 Discussion 36

PART C CONCLUSION 38

1 Summary of the study 38

2 Reflection 39

3 Limitations of the study 40

4 Plan for the next cycle 40

REFERENCES 42

APPENDICES I

Appendix 1: Lesson Plans I

Appendix 2: Vocabulary post-treatment test XVII Appendix 3: Vocabulary delayed post-treatment test XXI Appendix 4: Post-treatment questionnaire for students XXIII

Appendix 5A: Interview questions for students XXVII

Appendix 5B: Transcripts of the students‟ interview XXVIII

Appendix 6: Classroom Observation Evaluation Sheet XXX

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

GVB: Gia Vien B

MOET: Ministry of Education and Training

EFL: English Foreign Language

LIST OF FIGURES, TABLES AND CHARTS

Table 1: What is involved in knowing a word………9Figure 1: The model of action research……… 23Table 2: The results of the students‟ tests……… ……… 30

Table 3: Students‟ perception of the impact of direct instruction on their retention of vocabulary……….30

Figure 2: Students‟ attitude toward activities in teaching learning process……….32

Figure 3: Students‟ evaluation on teacher‟s vocabulary teaching style………33

Figure 4: Students‟ attitude to vocabulary teaching learning process……… 34

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Vocabulary is crucial to language learning since it functions as a cornerstone

of language use According to Nation (2001), “vocabulary learning is not a goal initself; it is done to help learners listen, speak, read, or write more effectively” (p.362) In other words, a necessary skill to strengthen reading and listeningcomprehension as well as to communicate successfully is the ability to grasp themeaning of new words This can positively impact overall academic success and candevelop skills for real world applications Rivers (cited in Nunan 1991) also arguedthat acquisition of an adequate vocabulary is vital for using second languagesuccessfully because without an extensive vocabulary, we will be unable to use thestructures and functions we may have learned for comprehensible communication.The vital importance of vocabulary is also reaffirmed through famous line “Withoutgrammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed”(Wilkins, cited in Guo 2010, p 50) Truly, without vocabulary, there will be nosentence, no text and no language Vocabulary learning, therefore, becomes central

to language acquisition, and interest in its role in second language learning hasgrown rapidly in recent years

With two years‟ experience of teaching at Gia Vien B High School (GVB),the writer has realized that for GVB students who study English as a part of theirgeneral education requirement, vocabulary is an integral part in mastering otherskills However, through the pre-research observation, the writer found that theyhave been facing some obstacles in learning vocabulary They are: (1) they hadlimited number of vocabularies, (2) they had trouble in memorizing the meaning ofwords, (3) and they forget taught words quickly By considering the problems asmentioned above, the writer conducted more observation and the interview to thestudents in the class to get more information By doing so, the writer explored somefactors causing those problems They are: (1) the teacher‟s way of teaching isconventional Students are just asked to read, repeat and write words all the times It

can also be said that teacher‟s vocabulary teaching technique is less varied, (2)students do not have many chance to review words after the lesson and (3) they arefed up with monotonous class‟ atmosphere.

Therefore, in order to help the students achieve success in learningvocabulary, an appropriate method for teaching vocabulary is very urgent Asknown, there are a lot of common methods such as contextual learning, definitioninstruction, strategy instruction, direct instruction, to name just a few Directinstruction is defined as a teacher-led instructional procedure in that students areprovided with specific instructions on the task, modeling, teacher-led practice,independent practice, and frequent feedback on their performance (Bender, cited inRockwell 1995) According to Rosenshine (1979), direct instruction has thefollowing characteristics: an academic focus; a teacher-centered focus; and use offactual questions; and controlled practice in instruction Direct Instruction, asSetiawan (2010) stated, not only uses more controlled and repetitive delivery ofinstruction, but also provides the teacher with strict guidelines for lessonpresentation, their introduction of successive skills It also gives students the chance

to work independently, work in groups when taking part in vocabulary games.Based on this background, the writer finds that direct instruction will be easier forthe teacher to conduct the students in teaching learning process In addition, therepetition delivery of vocabulary instruction can help the students review newlylearned words What is more, the students will no longer be passive ones obedientlysitting in desks and taking notes because they will be given the opportunities to takepart in the activities in groups The teaching learning process becomes moreinteresting for them

From the explanation above, it can be concluded that direct instructionmethod can be applied for dealing with the difficulties which GVB students havebeen encountering As a result, the writer is motivated in conducting an actionresearch on the impact of direct instruction on 11th-form students' vocabularylearning at GVB High School

2 Aims and Objectives of the Study

The study aims to find out the impact of direct vocabulary instruction onvocabulary learning of 11th-form students at GVB High School in Ninh Binh.Therefore, the study seeks to achieve the following objectives:

a To explore the impact of direct vocabulary instruction on students‟vocabulary retention

b To gain understanding of the students‟ opinions of and attitudes towardsdirect vocabulary instruction regarding its impact on their vocabulary retention inorder to inform my approaches to vocabulary instruction

3 Research questions

With the above-stated aims and objectives in mind, the researcher designedand conducted this action research project in order to seek answers to the followingresearch questions:

1 To what extent does direct vocabulary instruction impact the students‟vocabulary retention as measured by the post-treatment test and the delayed post-treatment test?

2 How do the students self-evaluate the impact of teacher‟s directvocabulary instruction on their vocabulary retention?

4 Method of the Study

As the aim of the study is to improve the teaching of vocabulary to thewriter‟s own students, the study adopted an action research approach The data werecollected by means of:

- Tests (post-treatment test and delayed post-treatment test)

5 Scope of the Study

To improve student‟s vocabulary learning, EFL teachers can use varieties oftechniques However, this study merely focused on studying how effectivevocabulary direct instruction is to students‟ retention of vocabulary Type ofvocabulary was introduced to the students through direct instruction method wasreceptive vocabulary

This action research was applied in six sessions The action was carried outfor 11th form students in a class of 37 students at GVB High School The collecteddata were analyzed and discussed to figure out how vocabulary direct instructionworks to help improve 11th form students‟ vocabulary learning Then somesolutions were proposed to improve the quality of teaching and learning vocabulary

6 Significance of the Study

For the teachers of English division, this study is hoped to bring them thedetailed and full view on the reality of teaching and learning vocabulary at 11th formstudents of GVB High School, and the necessary use of Direct Instruction toimprove vocabulary learning of students As a result, they can apply this method inteaching vocabulary It is also hoped that for the students who learn English as acompulsory subject at High School, this action research can provide them easy ways

to memorize vocabulary In addition, they are also given chance to practisevocabulary which helps them improve the ability of vocabulary retention

7 Organization of the thesis

The study consists of three major parts:

Part A, Introduction, presents the rationale of the study, the aims and

objectives, the research questions, the method, the scope, the significance and thedesign of the study, and review of previous studies

Part B, Development, includes three chapters:

Chapter 1, Literature Review, reviews the theories on vocabulary, types of

vocabulary, aspects of vocabulary; approaches to vocabulary instruction; retention;and the overview of direct instruction including definition, characteristics, process

Chapter 2, Methodology, describes the setting of the study, the participants

and materials used during six sessions of the research Moreover, this chapter showshow the researcher applied the data collection instruments and my procedure ofconducting the study

Chapter 3, Data analysis and findings, the writer used quantitative and

qualitative method to study and analyze the figure and information collected

Part C, Conclusion, gives a summary of the study, reflection, limitations of

the study, and plan for the next cycle

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEW

In order to lay a foundation for this research, some theoretical backgroundknowledge concerning concepts of vocabulary, the role of vocabulary in secondlanguage learning, vocabulary acquisition and direct instruction have beenreviewed

1.1 An overview of vocabulary

1.1.1 Definition of vocabulary

There are various definitions about vocabulary from researcher to researcher,even though from dictionary to dictionary and it depends on the criteria in terms oflinguistic, semantic According to Ur (1996, p 60), vocabulary can be defined,roughly, as words we teach in a foreign language However, a new item of

vocabulary may be more than a single word: for example, post office and

mother-in-law, which are made up of two or three words but express a single idea There are

also multi - word idioms such as call it a day, where the meaning of the phrase

cannot be deduced from an analysis of the component words In other words, it can

be understood that vocabulary is the total number of words in a language It can be asingle word, two or three word items expressing a single meaning even though multi– word idioms used in specific contexts

Hatch and Brown (1995, p 1) argued that the term vocabulary refers to a list

or set of words for particular language or a list of words that individual speakers oflanguage use Since vocabulary is a list, the only system involved is alphabeticalorder The choice in vocabulary selection and methods used in teaching vocabularyare important factors Sharing the same idea with Hatch and Brown, Hornby (1995,

p 1331) states that “vocabulary is the total number of the words” (with theirmeaning and with rules for combining them) making up the language

From the definitions above, it can be concluded that vocabulary is the totalnumber of words which are needed to communicate ideas and express the speaker‟smeans That is the reason why it is essential to learn vocabulary

1.1.2 Types of vocabulary

There are varieties of kinds of vocabulary Harmer (1998, p 159) adds thatactive vocabulary refers to vocabulary that students have been taught or learnt andwhich the students will recognize when they meet then but which they will probablynot be able to produce Haycraft (cited in Hatch & Brown 1995) divides two kinds

of vocabulary, namely receptive and productive vocabulary

a Receptive vocabulary is words that the learners recognize andunderstand when they occur in context, but which cannot produce correctly It isvocabulary that the learners recognize when they see it in reading context but do not use

it in speaking and writing The receptive vocabulary is also called a passive processbecause the learner only receives thought form others In language application, thereceptive vocabulary is considered the basic vocabulary It is much larger than productivevocabulary because there are many words recognized when the learner hears or reads but

do not use when he speaks or writes In these respects, Richards and Rodgers (1987, p.308) give a profound explanation that the listening vocabulary is larger than speakingvocabulary and similarly to the reading vocabulary that is relatively larger than writingvocabulary

b Productive vocabulary is the words that the learners can understand,pronounce correctly, and use constructively either in speaking or writing It involveswhat is needed for receptive vocabulary plus the ability to speak or write at theappropriate time Therefore, productive vocabulary is also called active vocabulary

In conclusion, the learners are in receptive control of the words that theyunderstand when they hear them or read them Meanwhile, the learners are inproductive control of the words that they use to express themselves, in speech or inwriting (Benjamin & Crow, 2012) In this research, receptive vocabulary in readingtexts is chosen to introduce to the students through direct instruction approachbecause direct instruction was proved to be effective once it was done prior to areading and reviewed or assessed after the reading (Coyne et al., 2009)

1.1.3 Aspects of Vocabulary Knowledge

When teaching vocabulary, three significant aspects teachers need to be

aware of and focus on are form, meaning, and use (Lessard-Clouston,

2013).According to Nation (2001), the form of a word or a phrase involves its

pronunciation (spoken form), spelling (written form), and any word parts that make

up this particular item which consist of prefix, root, suffix The meaning of a word

surrounds the way that form and meaning work together In other words, the

meaning of a word or a phrase is the concept and what items it refers to, and the

associations that come to mind to the people when they see that word or that phrase

(Nation, 2001) Nation (2001) stated that the use of a word or a phrase involves the

grammatical functions of the word or phrase, collocations that normally combine

with it, and any constraints on its use There are both receptive and productive

dimension for form, meaning, and use Therefore, Lessard-Clouston (2013) claimed

that knowing the three aspects of each word or phrase relates to 18 types of lexical

knowledge which is summarized in the following table

Written What does the word look How is the word written

recognizable in this word? needed to express the

meaning?

form and What meaning does thismeaning word form signal?

Meaning concepts What is included in this What word form can be

associations What other words does What items can the concept

this make people think of? refer to?

grammatical In what patterns does the In what patterns must

collocations What words or types of What words or types of

constraints Where, when, and how Where, when, and how

on use often would people expect often can people use this

Table 1: What is involved in knowing a word

(Adapted from Nation, 2001, p.27)

In this research, receptive vocabulary is selected to teach through directinstruction Therefore, the table above is really useful for teacher research so that

she knows which components should be mentioned and focused when presenting

and reviewing vocabulary

1.2 Approaches to vocabulary instruction

According to Hornby (1995), “teaching” is defined as giving instruction to

somebody‟s knowledge, skill, etc Based on his explanation, teaching vocabulary is

an activity that the teacher gives the students knowledge about vocabulary and how

to use it

To get the best result on language learning, it is important to choose good

and appropriate technique in teaching vocabulary There are numerous techniques

that can be applied in introducing vocabulary Allen (1983) suggested some

techniques of introducing vocabulary that can be prepared and chosen as follows:

a Demonstration

The technique, which belongs to demonstration, is gesture and action

performing The teacher can use real objects and command, or demonstrate the

material using of real objects available in the classroom namely, book, pencil, table,and board.

b Visual aids

Visual means something visible Teacher may use visual aids such asflashcards, photograph, blackboard, drawings, wall figures, and realia in theteaching of vocabulary to enable students to observe and identify the objectsvividly Besides, visualization may interest the students in their learning vocabulary

c Verbal Explanation

Verbal explanation can be conducted through definition and translation.Allen (1983) states that teacher can use explanation in the students‟ own language,definitions in simple English, and using vocabulary that students have already

known to show the meaning For example, the word “raincoat” can be introduced

by explaining what it looks like and when it is usually used

d Word List

Vocabulary selection should be paid attention to carefully by English teacherwhen using word list technique The words selected to teach should be suitable tothe students‟ need and their level

It goes without saying that all these techniques are more or less useful for aparticular situation, student‟s level or kinds of vocabulary, the best way would be inmany cases to combine them and use several together when presenting vocabulary

In this thesis, the writer could be flexible in choosing suitable techniques todemonstrate or explain vocabulary However, verbal explanation is not an effectivetechnique to introduce vocabulary because definitions do not appear to be usefulinstructional tools as explained by Marzano (2014)

1.3 Direct Instruction

1.3.1 Definition of Direct Instruction

Direct Instruction is defined as an approach to teaching It is skills-oriented,and the teaching practices which it implies are teacher-directed It emphasizes theuse of small-group, face-to-face instruction by teachers and aides using carefully

articulated lessons in which cognitive skills are broken down into small units,sequenced deliberately, and taught explicitly (Carnine, 2000; Traub, 1999, cited inCarnine, Silbert, Kame'enui, & Tarve 2013) Bender in Sylvia Rockwell (1995, p.54) defines direct instruction as a “teacher-led instructional procedure in thatstudents are provided with specific instructions on the task, modeling, teacher-led

practice, independent practice, and frequent feedback on their performance” Directinstruction is mentioned as a pre-planned approach with “brisk paced instruction”that enables students to learn systematically through steps and a sequence of well-organized assignments (Engelmann, Hanner, & Johnson, cited in Parker 2014).Bursuck and Damer (2007) contributed a clear and adequate notion of thecomponents of direct instruction in the following ways: explicit instruction is theclear, direct teaching of skills and strategies; systematic instruction is teaching thatclearly identifies a carefully selected and useful set of skills and then organizesthose skills into a logical sequence for instruction

It is also stated that direct instruction means teaching specific words, such aspre-teaching vocabulary prior to reading a selection It is estimated that students can

be taught explicitly some 400 words per year in school (Beck, 2013)

In general, the term direct instruction refers to (1) instructional approachesthat are structured, sequenced, and led by teachers, and/or (2) the presentation ofacademic content to students by teachers, such as in a lecture or demonstration Inother words, teachers are “directing” the instructional process or instruction is being

“directed” at students

1.3.2 The Characteristics of Direct Instruction

According to Marzano (2004), the main characteristics of effective directinstruction include:

a Effective vocabulary instruction does not rely on definitions;

b Students must represent their knowledge of words in linguistic and

nonlinguistic ways;

c Effective vocabulary instruction involves the gradual shaping of word meanings through multiple exposures;

d Teaching word parts enhances students‟ understanding of terms;

e Different types of words require different types of instruction;

f Students should discuss the terms they are learning;

g Students should play with words;

h Instruction should focus on terms that they have a high probability of

enhance academic success

Teacher researcher followed these characteristics of direct instruction strictlyand applied them in her vocabulary teaching as well as vocabulary revision

1.3.3 Process of Direct Instruction

According to Arends (1997, p 82), direct instruction relies heavily on thepreposition that much of what is learned comes from observing others The behavior

of others, both good and bad, thus becomes a guide for the learner‟s own behavior.Learning by imitation saves students much needless trial and error The teachingprocedure of direct instruction is as follows:

1 Clarify goals and main points

a State the goals or objectives of the presentation ;

b Focus on one thought (point, direction) at a time;

d Avoid ambiguous phrases or pronouns

2 Give step- by- step presentations a Present the material in small steps;

b Organize and present the material so that one point is mastered before thenext point is given;

c Give explicit, step- by- step directions (when possible);

d Present an outline when the material is complex

3 Carry out specific and concrete procedures a Model the skill or process;

12

b Give detailed and redundant explanations for difficult points;

c Provide students with concrete and varied examples

4 Check for students‟ understanding

a Be sure that students understand one point before proceeding to the nextpoints;

b Ask students questions to monitor their comprehension of what has been presented;

c Have students summarize the main points in their own words;

d Re-teach the parts of the presentation that the students have difficulty incomprehending, either by further teacher explanation or by students tutoring otherstudents

Meanwhile, Marzano (2004) suggested six-step process to effective

vocabulary direct instruction They are:

a Provide a description, explanation, or example of the new term;

b Ask students to restate the description, explanation, or example in their own words;

c Ask students to construct a picture, pictograph, or symbolic representation

of the term;

d Engage students periodically in activities that help them add to their knowledge of the terms in their vocabulary notebooks;

e Periodically ask students to discuss the terms with one another;

f Involve students periodically in games that enable them to play withterms

In this research, the writer follows six-step process suggested by Marzano(2004) for numerous reasons First of all, the six-step process suggested by Marzanohas been proved to have positive effects on students‟ vocabulary achievement in aseries of studies (Marzano, 2006a, 2006b; Gifford & Gore, 2008; Dunn, Bonner, &Huske, 2007, cited in Marzano 2010) Moreover, direct instruction can be regarded

as a powerful tool that can be used in classrooms at any grade level (Marzano,

2004) Secondly, the steps in teaching procedure of direct instruction are logic andscientific In specific, there is a balance between introducing new term[s to studentsand reviewing them The first three steps are applied when introducing a term tostudents while the last three ones are used when the teacher reviews newly learnedterm These later ones need not be executed in sequence as long as the students canget more knowledge of vocabulary At last, these six steps are easy for the author ofthis investigation to apply during the process of conducting the research at GVBHigh School In specific, each step in Marzano‟s process describes the vocabularyinstructions clearly; therefore, it provides the teacher research a strict guideline forher vocabulary presentation as well as vocabulary revision In addition, this processconsists of six steps, which is convenient for teacher researcher to apply during sixsessions.

1.4 Vocabulary retention

Retention is defined as “an ability to recall or recognize what has been learnt

or experienced; memory” (Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary, 1992, p 773)

Vocabulary retention has been defined as “the ability to recall or rememberthings after an interval of time In language teaching, retention of what has beentaught (e.g grammar rules and vocabulary) may depend on the quality of teaching,the interest of the learners, or the meaningfulness of the materials” (Richards &Schmidt, 2002, p 457) Bahrick (1984) states that how well people remembersomething depends on how

deeply they process it How deeply people understand words depends on repeating,re-cycling, and re-presenting vocabularies as well as re-noticing them by the learner

According to Frost (2008), human mind‟s ability to retain information can bedivided in to short-term memory and long-term memory based on the duration ofmemory retention Short-term memory is used to store or hold information while it

is being processed while long-term memory retains information for use in anythingbut the immediate future The object of vocabulary learning is to transfer the lexical

information from the short-term memory to the more permanent long-term memory(Schmitt, 2000) In this study, short-term memory is considered as the initialmemory of the word meaning at the end of the lessons whereas the number of wordscan be recalled at the next lessons or at the end of the study.

1.5 Related previous studies on the impact of direct instruction on the

students‟ vocabulary learning

A number of studies have investigated the effects of direct instruction on thestudents‟ vocabulary learning Some recent studies have been selected anddiscussed here

Setiawan (2010) contends that direct instruction method could improve thestudents‟ vocabulary mastery In specific, it helped the children remember themeaning of words easily and motivated them to learn vocabulary

The National Reading Panel‟s findings suggest that direct instruction invocabulary is effective in improving both vocabulary and comprehension(McCardle & Chhabra, 2004)

Beck and McKeown (2007) carried out two studies with kindergarten andfirst grade children from low achieving schools The first study compared a directinstruction approach to no instruction The direct teaching of words consisted of thefollowing steps: The word was contextualized in the story, the meaning wasexplained, children were asked to repeat the word, additional examples of the word

in context were provided, children made judgments about examples, childrenconstructed their own examples, and the word meaning was reinforced throughsubsequent questioning The no instruction group did not receive direct instructionbut did participate in daily read-aloud as a part of the school‟s curriculum ThePeabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-3, 1997) and pre/posttests were used toexamine the extent of learning Students who received direct instruction onvocabulary learned significantly more vocabulary In the second study, the authorscompared two groups receiving the same direct instruction as described in the first

study, the only difference was the amount of instructional time The gains weretwice as large for the students who received more instruction.

Biemiller and Boote (2006), after conducting two studies to compare theeffects of repeated reading without word explanations to repeated reading withdirect instruction of word meaning, came to a conclusion that direct explanations ofword meanings while reading stories provides explicit opportunities for children torelate words to meaning

Direct instruction can be beneficial for older students Middle school andhigh school curricula rely heavily on textbooks, which include a great number ofmultisyllabic words that are barriers to comprehension Analyzing word parts canhelp to infer the meaning of 60% of multisyllabic (Bromley, 2007) Students cananalyze words and independently determine meaning if knowing the meaning ofcommon root words and affixes Bromley (2007) states that explicit instruction thatfocuses on meaning and word structure can help students connect unknown words

to known words Older students should be taught to break down multisyllabic words

to aid them in analyzing word parts

Kucan et al (2006) conducted a professional development initiative whichdescribes a collaborative effort between high school teachers and university faculty

to enhance vocabulary instruction in secondary classrooms Teachers were taughthow to develop rich representations of word meanings through the usage of variousclassroom activities Some of these activities included teaching students how tolocate synonyms and antonyms, constructing visual representations, comparing andcontrasting words, identifying examples and non-examples, and reading words inmultiple contexts Teachers were also taught how to help their students learn abouthow words work These activities are: (a) direct instruction of root word and affixmeanings, (b) teaching students how to identify root words and affixes, (c) teachingstudents the parts of speech and how to identify them, and (d) getting studentsgenerate various forms of words This study‟s findings provide support for directinstruction

To put it in the nutshell, the reviewed studies showed that the impact ofdirect instruction on the students‟ vocabulary learning remains inconclusive Inaddition, there are few studies that have investigated the effect of direct instruction

on high school students‟ vocabulary retention Therefore, the present study aims toexplore the impact of direct vocabulary instruction on 11th-form students‟vocabulary retention, and gain understanding of the students‟ opinions of andattitudes towards direct vocabulary instruction regarding its impact on theirvocabulary retention

CHAPTER 2 METHODOLOGY

The purpose of the chapter is to present the specific procedure of the study

In the first place, this chapter describes the context, participants of the study as well

as material used during sessions Then, it explains why action research is used toundertake this study and the procedure of research The next parts in this chapter are

to present the instruments used to collect and analyze data

2.1 Setting of the study

The research was carried out in GVB High School, where English isconsidered as one of the most important subjects in training the students Theleaders have always created the best possible conditions for English teaching andlearning For example, in order to help students to improve listening and speakingability effectively, English speaking club has been established recently However,there are no separated classrooms for teaching and learning English As a result,English teachers often avoid the activities namely games and group-work discussionwhich may cause a lot of noise This is one of reasons why students are notmotivated to learn English

As for the students, they are just students with average scores of English testwhen entering the school They are divided into two streams: stream A (studentswith higher scores in natural sciences) and stream B for the rest of the The students

of stream A receive three English periods a week whereas students of the otherreceive four periods per week However, the teaching materials for both streams arethe textbooks and workbooks prescribed by MOET and the supplementary exercisesfor the basic stream selected by the classroom teachers

In the stage of learning English, both the teachers and the students have toface a great deal of difficulties Despite a lot of effort made by teachers, most ofstudents find it boring to learn English They spent not much time practicingEnglish; especially, they nearly ignore vocabulary learning It is an urgent problemwhich is expected to be solved in this study to attract more the students‟ attentionand enhance their autonomy in learning, specifically in vocabulary learning

2.2 Participants

The students

The subject of this research was the 11th form students of GVB High School,Ninh Binh province The 11th form class consists of 37 students, 18 boys and 19girls They are better at natural science subjects than social science subjects.Although all the students learned English from seven to eight years at elementaryand secondary school, most of them were not really motivated in learning Englishand they did not intend to take English as one of the subject in their college entranceexam Their English knowledge was just at the pre-intermediate level, some evencould not introduce about themselves in English In addition, students almost live inGia Vien, a rural district which is far from the centre of the city As a result, all have

no opportunities to use English for communicative purposes outside the classroom

At the time this research was conducted, they were in the second term of theacademic year and learned 57 main periods and 19 consolidation periods of English

in 19 weeks, which covered the last 7 units of “11 English textbook” Each unitlasted 5 or 6 periods, in which reading accounted for one period

Materials

In this study, the materials were chosen from reading texts which are selected

in 11 English textbook published by the MOET

2.3 Research design

2.3.1 Rationale for using action research method

The research was conducted as a classroom action research It was conducted

by the writer in order to explore “the impact of direct instruction on students‟vocabulary learning” Some definitions of action research have been proposed byexperts It is defined by Elliot (1991, p 54) that action research integrates teachingand teacher development, curriculum development and evaluation, research andphilosophical reflection into a unified conception of a reflective educationalpractice “Insider”, i.e teachers, is empowered by a unified education practice.Regarding to teachers, Wallace (1998) states that action research is a way of

reflecting on the teacher‟s teaching (or teacher-training, or management of anEnglish department, or whatever the teacher does in ELT) It is done bysystematically collecting data on his/her everyday practice and analyzing it in order

to come to some decision about what the future should be Kemmis and Mc Taggart(cited in Nunan 1988) claims that action research is a group activity It is a piece ofdescription research is carried out by a teacher in his or her own classroom withoutthe involvement of others, which is aimed at increasing our understanding ratherthan changing the phenomenon under investigation For Kemmis and Mc Taggart,the necessary impetus for carrying out action research was to change the system

Cohen and Manion (1985) offered a similar set of characteristics Theyargued that action research was first and foremost situational, being concerned withthe identification and solution of problems in a specific context They also arguedthat the aim of action research was to improve the current state of affairs within theeducational context in which the research was being conducted In other words,action research is situational; the research is initiated by practitioner and derivedfrom a real problem in the classroom Using action research concurrently to solve aproblem, improve the current state of affairs and generate new knowledge Sharingthe same ideas with Cohen and Manion, Mills (2003, p 4) define action research as

“any systematic inquiry conducted by teacher researchers to gather informationabout the ways that their particular school operates how they teach, and how welltheir students learn The information is gathered with the goals of gaining insight,developing reflective practice, effecting positive changes in the school environmentand on educational practices in generals, and improving student outcomes.”

To sum it up, the characteristics of action research can be identified asfollows: (1) Action research is carried out by practitioners (2) The results of theresearch have direct application to real word problems (3) The treatments andapproach that are investigated are flexible

Based on the characteristics of action research above, this research wasappropriately undertaken as classroom action research in order to bring about

educational change and improvement in vocabulary learning and students‟ learningattitude The application of direct instruction in vocabulary teaching and learningprocess in this research was flexible and could be monitored.

Kemmis and McTaggart (cited in Burns, 1999) explain that action researchproceeds through a dynamic and complementary process which consists of fouressential steps: planning, action, observation, and reflection Each step in this model

of action research can be explained in the following:

1 Identifying problems and planning the action;

2 Implementing the action and observing the effect of the critically informed action in the context in which it occurs;

3 Reflecting the result of the observation, and

4 Revising the plan for the following step

This model can be illustrated in diagram as follow:

Action &

ObservationStep 1 ……… Revised plan

Reflection

Action &

ObservationStep 2.……… Revised plan

action; v) reflecting the action; and vi) revising the plan Each step will beexplained as follows:

i Identifying the Problem

The researcher observed that students had problems with vocabularyretention, i.e., they could not memorize taught words As said in the LiteratureReview, vocabulary plays a pivotal role in language learning success, so poorretention of vocabulary is obviously one of the main barriers to students‟ improvedproficiency In order to get a deeper insight into that matter, semi-structuredinterview were conducted with four students selected randomly among 37 11th-formstudents in class 11 A2 Besides the problems with vocabulary retention, thefindings from the interviews also indicated that students did not enjoy learningvocabulary Therefore, the writer as the classroom teacher felt the responsibility tohelp students to address this problem

ii Planning the Action

A general plan was developed before implementing the action Specifically, thefollowing actions were done:

1) Designing sheets for classroom observation in order to know the situation

of teaching-learning process when the technique is applied

2) Planning the lessons for the intervention (i.e using techniques of direct vocabulary teaching)

3) Preparing necessary teaching aids such as pictures, slides, real objects to support classroom teaching

4) Designing post-treatment test to evaluate students‟ vocabulary learningafter the treatment and designing delayed post-treatment test to evaluate if students‟vocabulary retention enhanced or not

5) Experimenting the intervention in the classroom as planned

6) Administering the delayed post-treatment test and evaluating the result

7) Then, comparing the result of the treatment test and delayed treatment test to evaluate the degree of durable learning of students in learningvocabulary after the action.

post-iii Implementing the Action

The researcher conducted the action to her own class She applied directinstruction method in teaching English vocabulary during six sessions Each sessionlasted 45 minutes First, in order to help students be able to understand the content

of reading passage clearly, the writer applied direct instruction to pre-teach newwords that seemed to be difficult for students before each reading lesson.Vocabulary was taken from reading passages in unit 12 and unit 16 in textbookpublished by MOET Second, during these lessons, the researcher acted as a teacherand an observer to study students‟ attitudes in vocabulary lessons After finishingapplying direct instruction for 6 weeks, the researcher administered post-treatmenttest to evaluate students‟ vocabulary learning after the treatment Two weeks later,delayed post-treatment tests were sent to students in order to evaluate theirvocabulary retention Next, post-treatment questionnaires were delivered to thestudents to gain understanding of their attitudes toward and opinions of the impact

of direct instruction on their retention of vocabulary After that, the researchercollected the data and then carried out to analyze the data In order to check if whatstudents evaluated in questionnaires were reliable or not, the writer asked for thehelp from one of her colleague to interview four selected students about thestudents‟ self-evaluation to the impact of direct instruction on their vocabularyretention as well as on their attitudes toward learning vocabulary

iv Observing the Action

The researcher observed all students‟ activities during teaching learningprocess She also marked key points in the observation sheet prepared as soon asfinishing each lesson

v Reflecting the Action

The researcher made an evaluation on the observation result to find out thestrength and weakness during the action The weaknesses were refined in the nextcycle, so that finally the impact of using direct instruction to teach vocabulary wasdetermined

vi Revising the Plan

Based on the weaknesses which were found in reflecting process, the writerrevised the plan for the next cycle

2.4 Techniques of collecting data

A number of instruments were used as data collection tools to collect thedata The study used both quantitative and qualitative data collected by means ofpost-treatment tests, student questionnaires and interviews

Tests (see Appendix 2 & 3)

During the action research, the writer conducted two tests, each of which had

40 items which consisted of five matching questions, 10 multiple choice (MC)questions of synonyms and antonyms, 5 questions of word formations, 10 MCquestions to complete sentences, 5 MC questions of reading comprehension, and 5questions of word spelling The test aimed to evaluate the students‟ retention of newwords in different aspects: form, meaning, and use Post-treatment test was piloted

as soon as the final session finished Delayed post-treatment test was administeredtwo weeks after the post-treatment test to evaluate the degree of durable learning ofthe students

Questionnaires (see Appendix 4)

The purpose of the questionnaires is to collect data about the students‟perception to learning vocabulary when direct instruction was applied duringteaching-learning process and to see how they evaluate the impact of directinstruction on their vocabulary retention These are likert-scale questionnaires with

10 statements for each in Vietnamese They were delivered to all 37 students inclass 11 A2 after six sessions of applying the action

Interviews with the students

The semi-structured interview was used in this study Using this kind ofinterview gave the researcher a great deal of flexibility and allows a degree offreedom in getting information from interviewees The interviews were used to testthe validity of the information obtained from the questionnaires and observations

The very first interviews were conducted at preliminary study with the aim ofexploring the students‟ attitude toward learning vocabulary and the difficulties theyhave been facing when learning vocabulary There were two questions in the firstinterview:

a) Do you like learning vocabulary? Why or why not?

b) What difficulties you often encounter when learning vocabulary?

The post-treatment interviews (see in Appendix 5A) were carried out at theend of the study to gain more insights for the students‟ self-evaluation to the impact

of direct instruction on their vocabulary retention

In the pre-action interviews, four students were chosen randomly in the namelist while in the post-treatment ones, four students were chosen based on the scoresthey achieved in the tests Two of them were most achievable ones, one studentgained a little bit and the last one seemed to gain nothing

Two days before the interviews were undertaken; four selected students wereinformed about the interviews The purpose of this advance notice was to helpstudents prepare and promote their “professional” attitude The interviews wererecorded under the interviewees‟ permission for the purpose of the study Theinterview was conducted one-by-one to allow the research to delve deeply into theissue

The students were allowed to speak in Vietnamese so that the writer canelicit more information from the subjects The data from the semi-structuredinterviews was analyzed after gathering

2.5 Techniques of analyzing data

Two ways were applied to analyze the data, they are:

2.4.1 Descriptive technique

In descriptive technique, the researcher analyzed the transcript gainedthrough the interview with the teachers, questionnaires to students, and theobservation sheet

2.4.2 Statistical technique

A statistical technique was used to know if there was any impact to thestudent‟s vocabulary or no from the result of post-treatment test and delayed post-treatment test In this study, the students‟ post-treatment test scores were analyzed

by means of paired-samples t-test, using SPSS version 20

CHAPTER 3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

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This chapter presents the analysis of the data collected through the researchprocedure in order to deal with two research questions raised at the beginning of thestudy Based on the results and discussions, these two questions will be addressed inturn in this chapter

3.1 Analysis of the preliminary study

Preliminary research was conducted before implementing the action research

It was done in order to identify the problems during the teaching learning processdealing with students‟ vocabulary learning; to find out the students‟ attitudestoward learning vocabulary; and to evaluate the students‟ vocabulary proficiencybefore applying a new method

Several ways were done to gather data for preliminary study includinghaving observed the teaching learning process during 4 weeks before 2nd semesterstarted, then interviewing students

First of all, data collected from the observation, which focused on three mainaspects: the techniques the English teacher used to introduce and revise vocabulary,students‟ attitudes toward learning vocabulary during the lessons, and problemsthey were facing in learning vocabulary, was analyzed and some findings werewithdrawn as follow Firstly, the techniques applied in presenting vocabulary wereless varied Verbal explanation was a common technique She used the same wayshe conducted one meeting in the next including: giving Vietnamese equivalenttranslations for new words/phrases or translated Vietnamese words/phrases intoEnglish, then asking students to repeat words/phrases after her She sometimes usedvisual aids such as pictures to elicit the meaning of words and rarely provided thesynonyms or antonyms for new words Secondly, the students did not involve thelesson They were busy with themselves when the teacher explained the lesson.While their friends went to the board and did the task assigned by the teacher, most

of them made noise in the class At last, students‟ retention of vocabulary was poor.Because revision was not paid much attention on and revision techniques were also

less varied, most of students could not memorize newly presented words and theirmeaning even right after the class.

To ascertain whether the students felt bored with learning vocabulary andhad trouble in retaining taught words or not, the follow-up interviews wereconducted with 4 students selected randomly in the name list When being asked ifthey enjoy learning vocabulary or not all of students said “no”, this means that theywere not interested in learning vocabulary at all They shared the same points ofreasons they were not motivated to learning vocabulary, which can be summarized

as follow:

 The ways the teacher explains new words are boring

 I am fed up with monotonous class atmosphere The teacher works a lot while the students listen to and did the tasks she asks

 It is difficult to remember words and their meaning quickly as well as

retain them for a long time

The students said in the interview that they had some difficulties in learningvocabulary Firstly, they could not memorize the taught words in terms of form andmeaning Secondly, they could not recall the meaning and different forms of thetaught words when they encountered them in the tests

From the observation and interview, it can be concluded that (1) the studentswere fed up with monotonous class atmosphere; and (2) they had difficult inretaining words and their meanings

3.2 Data analysis

3.2.1 The findings from the post-treatment tests

Table 2 shows the variance of the mean score of two post-treatment tests Itcan be seen that there was no significant change between the post-treatment test andthe delayed post-treatment test (M=5.3 vs 5.97) This may be due to the followingreasons First, the treatment, which was taken in only 6 sessions, was not longenough to make the students progress in their vocabulary retention through directvocabulary instruction Secondly, because the time of the treatment was limited, thestudents did not have enough exposure to practice the newly taught words.

3.2.2 The findings from questionnaires

Due to the results taken from the pre-action, direct vocabulary instructionmethod was chosen to apply in teaching vocabulary After the action had beenundertaken, the questionnaire was delivered to students to collect data then toevaluate students‟ perception of their motivation to vocabulary learning and theeffectiveness that direct instruction could bring them to improve their vocabularyretention The results were shown in the tables below

Table 3: Students‟ perception of the impact of direct instruction on their

1 meaning of the new words helps me to 0% 5.4% 10.8 59.5 24.3

retain the new words better

meanings are presented visually

The association between words and 0 2 2 21 123.

their representing images helps me

long time

4 synonyms, antonyms, other forms of 0% 5.4% 5.4% 73% 16.2

root, suffix) help me remember new

words for a long time

agreed that revising vocabulary through vocabulary games could improve their

vocabulary retention This greatly contributes to the success and effectiveness of

direct instruction method applied Almost all respondents shared the same view thatconstructing a picture, pictograph, or symbolic representation of the taught words

was useful for their retention of vocabulary The percentages of those who agreed

and strongly agreed were 59.5% and 32.4% respectively There was only one

student having no idea and one was in opposition to the effectiveness of the

association between words and their representing images on his/her vocabulary

retention

The percentages of proponents of the effectiveness of restating in their own

words what their teacher had presented about new words and that of the benefits of

discussing your description, explanation, examples, and pictures of newly taught

words with their partners on their vocabulary retention were almost the same with